Liberation of France

The Liberation of France was a campaign of World War II which was fought from the invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944 to the 8 May 1945 surrender of Nazi Germany as the Allied Powers invaded and liberated France from Nazi German occupation.

The liberation began with the D-Day landings in Normandy on 6 June 1944, and the Allies launched Operation Cobra to break out of the beachheads in Normandy. The Allies proceeded to drive on Paris while the channel ports such as Brest, Dunkirk, and Lorient were besieged; Adolf Hitler declared that Brest and Lorient were to become festungen (fortresses), meaning that they were to be held to the last man. The English Channel ports were besieged until the general German surrender, but the Allies made major gains in central France, liberating Paris on 25 August 1944. The French countryside would be cleared by the advancing US Third Army under General George S. Patton from the north, while the Operation Dragoon amphibious landings by the US Seventh Army in southern France led to the liberation of the lands up to the Rhone River by November. The fighting for France continued for months as the Third Army advanced on the Siegfried Line on the France-Germany border, with the campaign in Lorraine costing the Third Army 55,182 casualties and the Germans 75,000 prisoners (plus dead and wounded). The fighting for Metz would end on 13 December 1944, while the fighting against the Germans in the Colmar Pocket lasted until 9 February 1945. The Germans were forced into their homeland in March-April 1945, but the channel ports would hold out until the general German surrender on 8 May 1945. France was devastated by the war, with several cities and towns being left in ruins.